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Intercepting emergency service pager messages – amended

I have received two questions about this issue, both from Victoria. My first correspondent wrote:

Recently my Fire Brigade in Victoria has opted to implement an emergency response system. The system basically takes the emergency information which is sent to the brigade via pager, and from this creates a map of the shortest route, nearby hydrants, weather etc. There are a number of these types of programs around and many of them are already in use in other Brigades and emergency services.

It’s all automatic. One system uses existing off air decoder infrastructure which is already installed at each fire station and generates the response information automatically using software designed by the owner of the company. Another system “taps into” the network using its own radio receivers and again generates the information automatically using software designed by the owner.

There has been much discussion regarding the legality of such a program and whether or not we are committing an offence by using them. I have tried to research the law which governs the use of this information however have been unsuccessful in finding the relevant legislation. Are you able to point me in the right direction and/or provide your advice on the subject?

I declined to address that as it was just too far outside my area of expertise and I didn’t have sufficient detail to understand the issue. I have now received a second question from another correspondent who included a memo from Victoria SES dated 6 March 2016 headed ‘Enhanced Messaging Systems for Member Availability and Operational Response’. My (second) correspondent wrote:

Currently, a major issue (perhaps across emergency services across the nation) is the use of scanning to view emergency alerting messages on different devices. Of particular note is the current problem facing VICSES and CFA members in regards to the large user base of the mobile application BART (http://www.bart.emerg.com.au/).

A number of users had been running scanners to receive EAS paging messages on their computers or brigade PC’s to supplement the pagers commonly used for alerting. The organisation behind BART took that a step further and integrated a paging feed (I’m assuming captured via a radio scanner) into their mobile application.

My understanding of the law up until now was that radio frequency scanning is perfectly legal as long as the user does not act on information they were not initially authorised to receive. If that is indeed the case, then by being SES or CFA members that are authorised to act on the information (given that we are all issued pagers which receive the same information) how can the service send an email to all members with a blanket statement claiming it is illegal? Over the past 5+ years I understand that telecommunications legislation has undergone some major changes and my lack of legal knowledge has made it rather difficult to understand. Perhaps it has changed, and I am unaware.

I did phone the ACMA information line to ask about this and was advised that there were no issues with scanning. After all, the CFA even sells Uniden scanners to their members. Uniden themselves sell pre-programmed scanners for ESO frequencies to the general public.

I suspected VICSES may consider the BART application to be illegal as they are running a commercial service with information captured using a scanner, however the actual statement from the service seems to imply that no feeds of any sort may be captured in any way which I believe to be incorrect. Being of an IT technical background, I have been keen to set up my own feed at the brigade headquarters to display on an information panel in our operations room, however according to the service this is illegal too.

I guess the question in summary is: “Is radio frequency scanning illegal, and if not what can and can’t be done?”

I also note that there are websites that rebroadcast live streaming emergency service radio communications.

Let me return to my response to my first correspondent (where I declined to answer the question). I claim some expertise in the law of emergency response, but not in telecommunications law, but I am indeed a lawyer so I should be able to find something. To repeat what I say on the page ‘about’ this blog ‘This is not a place for providing specific legal advice, so I won’t be able to answer questions that are based on actual events…’ That has to be particularly true here and what follow has to be read with a greater than normal degree of caution.

To clarify my understanding as this is what I’ll explore. What I understand is happening is that the SES and CFA send out a message via pager. I assume that works by sending some sort of data package that is transmitted from various base stations, the signal is received by the pager that can convert the data to text which is displayed on the screen. Because these transmissions are out there a person with an appropriate receiver and decoder can also ‘catch’ the transmission and that is what BART (http://www.bart.emerg.com.au/) and others are doing. They are then taking that data and providing enhanced mapping and other information that assists responders to get to the job.

With that understanding I’ll now begin an exploration of telecommunications law.

The advice issued by Victoria SES says:

The Executive wishes to reiterate the advice we have received, is that applications that illegally intercept the paging data feeds like BART and BART-like applications are not just technically illegal, they are actually illegal and VICSES cannot and does not endorse any activity that is in breach of the law.

Unfortunately it gives no reference to where the relevant law can be found. The regulation of telecommunications is a Commonwealth, not a state matter, so we need to look at various items of Commonwealth legislation.

The Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth) Part 13 provides for the Protection of Communications. That part seems to govern various providers of telecommunication services and creates offences if they release information about their subscribers or the information that they communicate via their service. In short your mobile phone service provider and its employees cannot disclose the contents of your text messages.

An ‘emergency call person’ (that is someone whose job it is to receive an emergency call) is not to release information that they receive in the course of their work as an emergency call person (Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth) s 278). Of course there is no offence if the disclosure is made ‘in the performance of the person’s duties’ so there is no offence for an ‘emergency call person’ to use the information they receive to dispatch the emergency services (s 279(5)). Section 286 ‘Calls to emergency service number’ also allows the release of information that is given to an emergency call taker to the relevant emergency service. We can infer that a person who receives a call for the CFA or the SES and then sends that information via the pager system to alert the brigade or unit commits no offence.

None of that prohibits interception of this data but it must impose some obligation upon the emergency services to act reasonably. Consider an emergency call taker who is required to keep confidential the information received when a person makes an emergency call. The call taker can of course record that data and then use it to despatch the emergency services, but they couldn’t do that by going to the window and yelling out to the crew in the fire station across the road. That would be disclosing the information to anyone else who is walking along the street (and see the discussion on the Privacy Act, below). So a confidential system is used, either radio, telephone, or walking down with the call out information on a piece of paper. We know that radio and telephone communications’ can be intercepted and there are limits to what a service can do to encrypt that data but they have to take some care not to disclose the information.

The Radiocommunications Act 1992 (Cth) provides that it is an offence to have or operate a radiocommunications device (which includes a receiver (s 7) unless there is an appropriate licence. There are an infinite number of standards and licenses listed on the Federal Register of Legislation which allow us to have things like mobile phones, hands free phones, remote control devices etc. I can’t determine whether or not the receivers that the various services that are providing enhanced response information are covered by those licences, but one would have to infer that if the emergency services can broadcast their message on a particular channel, a device that receives that message must be covered by a relevant licence.

It is an offence to use a transmitter that may interfere with emergency service telecommunications (s 196) but I don’t understand that what these services are doing is interfering with the ESO telecommunications.

(c) do any act or thing that will enable him or her or another person to intercept;

a communication passing over a telecommunications system.

Interception means ‘listening to or recording, by any means, such a communication in its passage over that telecommunications system without the knowledge of the person making the communication’ (s 6). A telecommunications system is a telecommunications network that is wholly or in part in Australia ‘and includes equipment, a line or other facility that is connected to such a network and is within Australia’ (s 5). A telecommunications network is ‘a system, or series of systems, for carrying communications by means of guided or unguided electromagnetic energy or both, but does not include a system, or series of systems, for carrying communications solely by means of radiocommunication’ (s 5; emphasis added).

Radiocommunication means:

(a) radio emission; or

(b) reception of radio emission;

for the purpose of communicating information between persons and persons, persons and things or things and things (Radiocommunications Act 1992 (Cth) s 6).

A ‘radio emission’ is ‘is any emission of electromagnetic energy of frequencies less than 420 terahertz without continuous artificial guide, whether or not any person intended the emission to occur’ (s 8). I have no idea what that means. The maximum penalty for an offence contrary to s 7 is 2 years imprisonment (s 105).

Finally there is the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic). Both these Acts give effect to the agreed Privacy Principles which provide, in short, that a public service agency can only use information that it receives for the purposes for which it was received and must take steps to ensure that the information is not disclosed to inappropriate persons. In Victoria the Commissioner for Privacy and Data Protection ‘must develop the Victorian protective data security framework for monitoring and assuring the security of public sector data’ (Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic) s 85). Let us assume, without checking, that there is a framework and that it applies to both the CFA and the SES.

Discussion

Having set out some relevant law we can now try to apply it to the situation at hand even without proper technological understanding. First my (second) correspondent says:

My understanding of the law up until now was that radio frequency scanning is perfectly legal as long as the user does not act on information they were not initially authorised to receive…I did phone the ACMA information line to ask about this and was advised that there were no issues with scanning. After all, the CFA even sells Uniden scanners to their members. Uniden themselves sell pre-programmed scanners for ESO frequencies to the general public.

The issue is that there is a Radiocommunications Act and a Telecommunications Act. Section 7 of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth) makes it an offence to intercept a Telecommunication but there is no equivalent for radiocommunications. Put simply it’s an offence to intercept Telecommunications but not Radiocommunications, but what’s the difference?

Since making the original post contributors have made comments (see the ‘Responses’ button, below). I’m grateful for the comments by David Fitch, for helping my thinking here. (See also https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-telecommunication-and-radio-communication). David, in a comment says ‘I guess to me at least it comes down to whether a transmission is intended to be private or not’. That’s not the legal test but it may still be helpful. Anyone who has used a two way radio, whether it’s on a private radio network, UHF CB or the Government Radio Network knows that other people with a radio on the same frequency or in the talkgroup can hear the conversation. When you pick up a phone, even a mobile phone, you expect that the only person who can hear the conversation is the person on the other phone. The phone does not depend solely on radio communication as there has to be other features such as a SIM card, a telephone number and account etc and the phone is connected to the network. If there’s no mobile tower nearby my ‘phone won’t work even to call the person next to me. A radio will transmit to the world from it’s own aerial and I can communicate with anyone in range without the need for those extra features. That may be a useful way to imagine the difference. David’s comment below, suggests that a pager is just another radio receiver and if that’s right that would mean the pager message is radiocommunication. If on the other hand, it needs to be ‘connected to’ a network then it would appear it’s a telecommunication’s device.

As noted by my correspondent, you can easily buy a scanner and there are websites that stream emergency services communications (see for example http://nswscan.blogspot.com.au/p/live-streams.html). On the assumption that action would have been taken if this was illegal I would infer this is not an offence under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth) s 7 because this is intercepting ‘radiocommunication’ not ‘telecommunication’.

If a pager is a ‘radiocommunication’ then the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth) doesn’t apply in which case someone who ‘harvests’ the pager data is not committing any offence. If the ESO facilitates that, however, the ESO may still be committing offences under the Telecommunications and Privacy laws unless they have taken the appropriate steps to bind the third party service provider to ensure that they do protect the data.

There are then a number of scenarios.

If a pager is telecommunications and the third party is intercepting the CFA/SES communication that is not intended for them, then that would be an offence contrary to s 7 of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth). A pager message is an example of telecommunication if the pager message is delivered via ‘a system, or series of systems, for carrying communications by means of guided or unguided electromagnetic energy or both, but [is not] … a system, or series of systems, for carrying communications solely by means of’ ‘any emission of electromagnetic energy of frequencies less than 420 terahertz without continuous artificial guide’.

If the pager message is delivered via radiocommunication that is ‘a system, or series of systems, for carrying communications … solely by means’ of ’emission of electromagnetic energy of frequencies less than 420 terahertz without continuous artificial guide’ then there is no offence in monitoring the transmission.

If the SES/CFA facilitate the service by providing the feed – so if for example a local unit contracts with the service provider and allows them to access their feed there are a number of other issues. First that may be an offence under s 7(1)(b) (‘authorising’) or (c) (‘enabling’) of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth). Second, sharing the confidential information that the caller has provided with the service provider, without ensuring that the service provider is also bound by the relevant privacy principles, could be an offence contrary to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic). If the service is knowingly sharing the information with the service provider that might also be an offence under the Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth) s 278.

It follows that the SES is correct, there are ‘legal issues such as accessing the data, and addressing information privacy requirements’ at least where the data is provided by the agency. Equally if the third party provider is harvesting data from a telecommunication (but not radiocommunication) system then intercepting ‘the paging data feeds’ is illegal.

That does not mean that setting ‘up my own feed at the brigade headquarters to display on an information panel in our operations room … is illegal too’ because that is using the information for the purpose for which it was intended and is keeping the information within the agency. It is not disclosing the information to some third party without ensuring that they too will honour the agencies obligations. I can’t comment on that in detail but it does appear to be quite different.

Conclusion

As noted at the start this is my first foray into telecommunications law (and I thank my correspondents for opening a new area for me) so my conclusion has to be read with more caution than normal. A particular problem is that I don’t know or understand the technical details of what the service is providing, how the pager system works and how the message is being obtained by the enhanced service provider.

With those limitations however, it is clear that indeed there could be many issues. The critical issue is that by getting the data from the pager/call out feed the third party provider is getting access to private information without the consent of the person who gave the information and either without the consent of the CFA/SES or without contractual guarantees to ensure that the service provider is committed to protecting the data as if they were the CFA/SES. To return to the SES memo it says:

VICSES has had discussions with EMV who have undertaken to conduct some further research, including what other interstate jurisdictions are doing about BART and similar applications, seeking advice from ACMA as to what options are available to address legal issues such as accessing the data, and addressing information privacy requirements.

That seems eminently sensible. If ‘Units have gained some advantages through enhanced capability to manage member availability and in some cases supplement the primary alerting system’ then the commitment from VICSES to look at options will, hopefully and in due course, find a way to secure those advantages. In the meantime the direction that ‘Units are not to seek extensions, renewals or variations to such contracts or to enter into any new contracts following this advice’ also seems entirely sensible.

I think you have erred in this statement: “Intercepting data packages that are sent for a pager would, I suggest, be intercepting ‘a communication passing over a telecommunications system’.”
In my opinion (as a non-lawyer but as someone who knows a little about RF) it is exactly the same as a radio transmission. A pager message is encoded in plain text and sent as a short burst of radio waves and transmitted on the VHF radio frequencies. Just because it is not “voice” to the human ear doesn’t change this. Voice is also encoded for transmission over the air and decoded by the radio receiver. Bursts of data are routinely transmitted on radio freqs (eg. CTCSS, selcal and so on) and this doesn’t change the communication (I would think) from a “radiocommunication” to a “telecommunication”.
This whole area is also obviously another one where I don’t think the law has kept up with technology.

David, happy to accept that your interpretation is correct. I certainly didn’t find the definition of ‘radiocommunication’ very helpful. And when I started I did think it would be the same. If it is a radiocommunication and not a telecommunication then the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth) doesn’t apply. Do you have any thoughts on how to distinguish between telecommunication and radiocommunication? What do you see as the critical difference?

I get the feeling the law in this area comes from before mobile phones and things like VOIP and so on were around. My impression is they were trying to distinguish between listening/intercepting phone calls (private) versus radio broadcasts (public) so decided to use the terms telecommunication and radiocommunication (phone lines vs radios). Of course these days a large amount of telecommunications is over radio frequencies so the terms are not really correct. If you’re outside a big city your “landline” phone is probably transmitted over a “radio” (microwave) link at some point.

I guess to me at least it comes down to whether a transmission is intended to be private or not. I guess you could say a pager message to a fire brigade is intended to be private but it is sent to a large number of recipients (typically 30-50 I would guess but sometimes many hundreds or thousands of people in the case of more informational-type messages), and is not encrypted, so to me that’s not private. Mobile and cordless phones are encrypted as are police radios and messaging systems.

I don’t see it as any different to radios used by emergency services, if it’s ok to listen to them, then it’s ok to listen to the pager messages too. And the CFA, and most (all?) volunteer emergency services and their volunteers (and local communities), think there are benefits to being able to listen on a scanner to the radio transmissions. There is always going to be someone who misuses something they hear but that shouldn’t outweigh the many more who find it useful.

As a side note there are benefits to public transmission, eg the RFDS (flying doctor) HF radio network and VKS737 (4WD radio network) are public and not encrypted, although users must be licensed, and they actively encourage users to keep their radios on and listen for transmissions to assist remote area travellers who might need help or are unable to get through on their radio to a base so other users can relay the message.

The issue is that there is a Radiocommunications Act and a Telecommunications Act. Section 7 of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth) makes it an offence to intercept a Telecommunication but there is no equivalent for radiocommunications. So the issue is not whether or not the communication is intended to be private or not. As David says intercepting a phone call on a landline is an offence but today so many calls are radio based. If a pager is a ‘radiocommunication’ then the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth) doesn’t apply in which case someone who ‘harvests’ the pager data is not committing any offence nor do they commit an offence if they repackage it and sell that repackaged data. If the ESO facilitates that, however, the ESO may still be committing offences under the Telecommunications and Privacy laws unless they have taken the appropriate steps to bind the third party service provider to ensure that they do protect the data. It follows that there are ‘legal issues such as accessing the data, and addressing information privacy requirements’ at least where the data is provided by the agency. If the service provider is simply monitoring and harvesting data from the transmission then, if it’s radiocommunication, ‘intercept the paging data feeds’ is not illegal.

The issue is not particularly ‘listening’ to the data, the issue is rebroadcast of said data!! You have to be aware of the distinction!!!

The difference to those radio transmission you are talking about is that the owners of the hardware and therefore the data being transmitted are the ones that are doing the ‘rebroadcasting’ of said transmissions.

The CFA set up there own broadcast on the internet but they can do so as the radio system is theirs to do with as they please as they purchased it, and in setting up their own broadcast as the owners are happy for people to listen.

The problem with the system that really the question was about is that not only does he rebroadcast CFA and SES messages, it is done for AV paging as well, of which a number of personal details and medical issue can be transmitted over the network, which could lead to privacy issues of patients knew that it was happening. Yes you can decode it at home and read it, but rebroadcasting it becomes a whole different story!!

A couple of recent comments by Brendan King have focussed on the issue of ‘rebroadcast’. Let me summarise the debate so far. I think the law is reasonably clear. It is an offence to intercept telecommunications but not radiocommunications. Neither Act makes any reference to rebroadcast. The critical issue we all have is trying to understand where a pager feed fits into that definition. Rob Gater from nav000 is pretty adamant a pager is telecommunications but David Fitch thinks it radio. Where now at the point of what we lawyers call a ‘question of fact’ not law. If this was a court we’d get experts from ACMA and others to come and explain the difference so a court could decide where the pager fitted in the scheme of things.

As for privacy laws these don’t apply to everyone. They do apply to the CFA/SES and they have to take steps to ensure that they don’t disclose information that is given to them for their purposes. Equally under the Telecommunciations Act an emergency call taker can’t share the information with just anyone but they can with the SES and CFA. So these organisations just can’t give the data feed to a third party. Of course in this day and age government agencies can’t do everything themselves and they need to contract with third parties to provide various services. The CFA/SES could therefore enter a contract with one of these service providers to give a value added product to responders but the contract would have to be drafted in such a way as to ensure that the contractor was also bound to keep any information they received, confidential. This doesn’t seem relevant if all the service provider is doing is installing hardware at the CFA station that then picks up the feed intended for that station and displays it but where the service provider is not at any stage accessing the data.

Brendan says:

“The difference to those radio transmission you are talking about is that the owners of the hardware and therefore the data being transmitted are the ones that are doing the ‘rebroadcasting’ of said transmissions.
The CFA set up there own broadcast on the internet but they can do so as the radio system is theirs to do with as they please as they purchased it, and in setting up their own broadcast as the owners are happy for people to listen.”

The CFA may do that but I’m not convinced. If I look at a website such as http://nswscan.blogspot.com.au/ it certainly has no suggestion that it’s an official channel. I actually can’t find any offence or law against rebroadcasting a scanned radio broadcast. If the person can hear the transmission they are not an agency collecting private information so they are not bound by the privacy legislation. (It’s like the debate over journalists generally, and wikileaks in particular. A person may commit an offence if they leak restricted data to the media, but they don’t commit an offence if they publish it).

As for the ownership I’m not sure that’s an issue. DoJ, ETSA, CFA and SES are all Victorian government agencies. ETSA may receive the emergency call and that imposes some restrictions upon them but they are allowed to pass it on to the CFA and SES who in turn are allowed to pass it on to their responders. They could certainly agree to give the feed to a third party provided the contract was sufficiently secure to ensure it was only being used for the emergency response purposes and that the contractor was bound by the privacy considerations.

All of these discussion leads me to the same conclusion I started with. If the pager is a telecommunication system (not a radio communication system) then intercepting the data feed is illegal. In any event the CFA and SES (and therefore units) can deliver the feed to the third party service provider without taking steps to ensure that they honour the agencies privacy needs. It follows that I think the SES is being very sensible in seeking ‘advice from ACMA as to what options are available to address legal issues such as accessing the data, and addressing information privacy requirements’ and further in directing their units ‘not to seek extensions, renewals or variations to such contracts or to enter into any new contracts’ for such services.

I am known to you by the terms ‘others’ apparently.
Your listings show BART and others…

I would like to clarify the position of pagers in a system. The pager itself has a radio receiver in it. However the pager does not show/display all the network traffic that is sent over the EAS network as it will only trigger via the reception of the CAPCODE that is addressed specifically for the members pager. i.e. the correct ‘phone number’ is you like.

Therefore this is indeed a Telecommunications system and not just a radiocommunications system.

With BART, he is receiving the paging feed from his business and then rebroadcasting this information over a different medium (the Google Play/iTunes servers) to his users for commercial gain.

I have a system ‘000nav’ that is only located with a physical PC system in each fire station and has it’s own paging decoder at the station to receive page messages only pertaining to that brigade. These are then fed to the members phones via the same ‘Google Play and Itunes servers, but they are being sent from the PC located on the agencies premises. Note the Agency also owns the PC!

Receiving paging messages not directed to the user is a breach of privacy as you have previously explained. The ‘not directed’ is where people are looking at the entire paging feed without filtering just the ‘capcode’ for them. An example of this is another illegal website called Mazzanet. CFA have been trying to shut this down for a few years already.

So, The system does receive the pages on CFA property, then sends those pages to it’s members from the CFA property, by a CFA owned PC.
This is a very big difference!
Thanks,

Rob, thanks very much for that clarification. If the paging system is a telecommunications device then ‘Receiving paging messages not directed to the user’ is not only a breach of privacy but an offence under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. Without making any conclusion on the legality or otherwise of 000nav it certainly would appear that having a system that receives the page data without it being shared with a third party and then sends it only to those to whom it was addressed is ‘a very big difference’.

Yes, I completely agree. I am a CFA member and employee and only make the 000nav system for CFA members.

I have been progressively installing 000nav systems in CFA stations for the past 5 years. CFA management know full well what is out there and have chosen to NOT do anything themselves. As the Chief said “We didn’t have to spend a cent, the Vols brought it all themselves”. This was in response to a request that occurred by several of the other state Chief’s from around the country after CFA integrated (Staffed) stations were backfilled with staff from other states and experienced what 000nav can do for them. They then went back to their own respective management and wanted to get 000nav into their fire services. Their Chief’s rang our Chief and got that answer!

Hi Michael. The distinction needs to be made with what is happening in this particular instance. The creator is intercepting the pager message at his own business, in complete opposite to what he has placed out into public knowledge where he states that he has a receiver in each station or unit headquarters which is completely untrue.

This data is then rebroadcast over the Internet to users devices. It is here where the legalities come into play. As I understand you can recieve the data if you so wish to, as there are deciding programs available for free download, BUT you may not then rebroadcast that to anybody else. To make it even greyer the creator is now wishing to charge for the service so each user pays a, yes small, fee to recieve said messages.

I have advice from EMV that the system is in fact in contravention of one or both acts that you describe.

I requested clarification from an organization that of said app and system is illegal then what are the ramifications of a user then paying for such a service?? I do understand that this is not your specific legal expertise.

I forgot to say. The problem with permissions is that nobody seems to want to own up to who ‘owns’ the data being received.

The CAD (computer aided dispatch) that sends out the data is owned by DOJ or the state government, I can be corrected if wrong, and is ‘run’ by ESTA. They put the data in and press send so to speak.

The CFA/SES can state that they will give a direct feed to the data, but how can that be done if the equipment is not theirs in the first place and the owner doesn’t give permission??? And then still the owner must give permission to the ‘other’ company to rebroadcast the data!!

Having had discussions with individuals who have had pager streams in the past and have been forced to shut them down by ACMA and DOJ, the reason given is for rebroadcasting intercepted messages!! I wonder then are the ACMA/DOJ not using the telecommunications or radio communications act, but rather whichever act covers copyright???

If these agencies regard a pager as a telecommunications device, could this be a breach of copyright like playing a movie or music to a large audience?? I know you can apply for a license to allow you to publicly play movies and music but that would need approval from the relevant authority in which case I don’t believe they would approve the license going on past actions!!

That’s an interesting point and yes that would work. No doubt DOJ would own the intellectual property in the message content and so there would be an issue there particularly if the agency doing the rebroadcast was charging for the service.

Being a VICSES Volunteer I think these services offered by third parties, on face value, are fantastic, they certainly enhance response procedures, and I think most volunteers are aware they should not be used to replace our primary means of notification, that being our EAS pagers.
However at the end of the day, until the relevant parties can come to a legal agreement allowing them to receive the pager message information directly from DoJ or ESTA, then I can only see the following outcome.

Once it can be confirmed that the EAS paging system is a telecommunications system as opposed to radiocommunication system, then it is cut and dry, black and white, no more cliche’s required ILLEGAL to intercept paging messages if you are not allowed to (Law Enforcement Agency with a warrant, Network Administrator etc are allowed to).
Forget storing, re-broadcasting, charging for or profiting from.. whether the person who gets the information is the intended recipient or not.. all does not matter. The Act goes on to say who and what are exempt from this, but none of it covers a private individual, organisation, or business that is not authorized to do so.